


Ships in the Night

by medusine



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Era, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, M/M, Season/Series 03, Storms, Story within a Story, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 02:33:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusine/pseuds/medusine
Summary: What else is there to do during a storm than to snuggle up to your Captain and listen to him tell the story of how the Walrus got its name?





	Ships in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flinnt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flinnt/gifts).



> Happy Holidays Saskia! I hope you enjoy this (not very Holiday-ish) piece! =)

The ocean raged. Enormous waves rocked the _Walrus_ , roaring and gurgling around the hull, making the wood groan and creak under their pull. Fierce winds whistled through the ship's smallest cracks, ghostly and piercing. Rain poured onto decks in icy sheets and drummed at the windows of the Captain's cabin. It was hard to believe that just the previous day, the crew had been practically expiring from the heat under a bright blue sky.

Silver had soon retreated from the slippery decks, shivering, soaking wet. He'd joined Flint in the Captain's cabin and been gruffly reprimanded for being out there at all. Then Flint had hung up a hammock; it was supposedly safer to sleep there during storms. The lurching waves might push Silver off his makeshift bed on the window ledge, and Flint didn't want to risk sleeping in the hanging cot for fear of it crashing into the sides of the hull.

After some effort to haul himself into the hammock, Silver lay nestled in blankets, naked skin covered in goosebumps, until an equally naked Flint pressed up behind him and wrapped himself around him.

It was all very practical, this arrangement to lie entwined in a hammock, skin to skin. Purely practical, if you believed Flint; they had to be kept safe from the inconveniences of a storm, after all. Silver's boot rolled and scraped about on the cabin floor, bottles and instruments clinked in Flint's desk drawers, and the hanging cot thudded against the ship's side when the ship rolled in the waves, just as Flint had predicted. From the hammock, these were all comforting sounds.

Then Flint was pressing kisses down the back of Silver's neck, lazy and soft. That, probably, wasn't born from any practical need, though it certainly warmed Silver up instantly, made him melt into the heat of Flint's body.

These gentle touches weren't something Silver was used to. They'd had passion, an undeniable spark that had ignited the moment they'd first touched, a flame that would have likely consumed them entirely, had Flint not been consumed by his own ambitions, and Silver by his own survival. And so they only snatched moments together: moments filled with soft moans and gasps, with mouths insatiable for each other's lips, with the slide of bodies frenzied with need.

Silver had found ecstasy in Flint's arms, yes, but that had only been lust. Now, though, as their alliance grew stronger and the war drew closer and closer, they seemed to have made time for these quiet moments, where lust only smouldered rather than burned. Silver could relish the feel of Flint against him, from his soft cock pressed into the back of Silver's thigh to his palm resting on Silver's chest. Silver wondered if Flint could feel his heart stuttering in time with the cracks of lightning.

“Aren't you worried?” Silver asked. “About the storm?”

“We've weathered worse than that.” Flint's breath was warm on Silver's skin. “And if this ship has proved anything, it's that she's fucking resilient.”

“Mm. And huge. You have no idea how many people I've overheard saying that you're trying to compensate for something.”

Only a few months ago, such a remark would have earned Silver a glare or a snarl. Now, Flint only snorted into the back of Silver's neck, squeezing him a little tighter. “I needed a huge ship with a huge hold to steal a huge treasure,” he said.

Strangely enough, the _Walrus_ had brought back the treasure after all, as though she'd been destined to do so, whether she was captained by Flint or not. Silver didn't know much about ships, but he was starting to understand the reverence, the adoration, the _faith_ that sailors felt for their ship, as if it were a small god.

“Why the _Walrus_ , though? Surely that wasn't her name, when you stole her.”

Flint chuckled. “No, she used to be the _Portsmouth_. Trading vessel.”

“D'you know, I asked a dozen men why this ship was called the _Walrus_ , and nobody could give me an answer. Captain's whim, they said. They only agreed to the name because they couldn't be bothered to come up with anything better.”

“Are you asking me to tell you a story?” Flint murmured into Silver's ear. The tickle of Flint's beard on Silver's skin gave him a delightful shiver.

“I suppose I am,” Silver said. “It's the sort of thing a Quartermaster should know, after all.”

And he knew what Flint was thinking. Flint was thinking that Silver was asking him for stories, when he wasn't ready to tell Flint anything entirely true or relevant about his past. He'd tried and utterly failed when Flint had asked it of him, that day on the cliffs, and that conversation weighed on both of them ever since. Silver knew that these thoughts filled the silence while Flint hesitated to speak, to offer yet another story which was apparently personal to him.

Silver was about to turn around and tell Flint not to bother. About to turn over and kiss him, and start a new conversation with his lips and hands and flesh, one which was much more honest than any words that could ever come out of his mouth. But then Flint nuzzled the back of Silver's neck and shifted slightly, rocking the hammock and pressing them all the closer.

“When I was thirteen years old, my grandfather let me go on a fishing expedition with some of his old crew. We were going to get cod in Newfoundland.”

Tension slowly drained away from Silver's limbs as he let Flint's voice fill his head. Time and again he was floored that Flint just chose to do that, to give to Silver what Silver couldn't give him. He supposed that Flint just revelled in telling stories; contemplating other implications of Flint's willingness to bare himself to him was far too dangerous.

“Isn't Newfoundland far up north?”

“Yeah. It gets bloody cold by the end of the fishing season. Everything starts freezing over.”

Silver shivered. “Why the fuck would you choose to go there?”

Flint shrugged, warm shoulders brushing against Silver's. “It was my first adventure, I wanted it to be impressive.”

Silver chuckled, shaking his head. “Sounds like you.”

Flint's lips curled into a smile against Silver's neck.

“So, how is that related to this ship's name?”

“Have you ever seen a walrus?”

“No. I've been told they have tusks, so I assume they're some sort of giant boar.”

“Not even remotely. And I'd never seen one either, when I was a lad going off on an adventure. I'd never been far from the shore, and the ocean was huge, and terrifying, and fascinating.”

 _Like you_ , Silver thought. He swallowed the words down before he betrayed his fascination for Flint. Dangerous, he reminded himself.

“Every day I was more and more bored with swabbing the deck, and helping the cook, and listening to the crew squabble. But the sea… the sea was spellbinding. I spent most of my day watching it. Then I'd get reprimanded by the quartermaster for dawdling.”

Silver could see Flint in his mind's eye, a red-headed boy, all freckles and gangly limbs and eyes the colour of the waters he sailed. He could imagine the sulky pouts and the put-upon sighs Flint had surely given anyone attempting to tell him what to do, and the sharp, dark threat in his eyes if anyone did him wrong.

“So in the end the quartermaster grew weary of me and sent me up in the crow's nest to be battered by winds and rains and sickened by the roll of ship.”

“Why do I have a feeling you actually enjoyed that?” Silver asked. His fingers were trailing along the back of the hand Flint had planted against his chest, drawing the lines of each bone, each sinew, each vein.

“You know me well,” Flint murmured, and Silver thought he was smiling again. “It was quiet up there, with no one to shout orders at me. I spent my days watching the ever-changing waters, seeing shoals of fish flash by, and sometimes the shadows of whales in the depths.”

“You talk about the sea as though you're in love with it,” Silver blurted out, half-dazed by Flint's soothing voice.

“I suppose I did fall in love with it then. I'd always loved the sea, but that's when I knew I'd be a sailor.”

How easy that sounded. One defining moment, one look at the ocean, and your destiny unfolded in front of you – all you needed was to follow where it led. Silver often envied Flint's ability to spin his life into a coherent story, where Silver's own life was just made up of senseless threads of events that all faded into a tangled mess, better forgotten than examined too closely.

“Is that where you saw your first walrus, then? From the crow's nest?”

“Likely, yes. A slick brown head peeking out of the waves, a massive beast plunging underwater. But it was easier to watch them when they gathered on the beach in Newfoundland, like a herd of giant seals.”

“Seals. Is that what they are? I've seen a few of those. Sort of… dogs, with fins instead of legs?”

“I suppose that's a fair enough description. Except that a walrus is about the size of a bull, with tusks as long as my arm. On land they're the most awkward things, heavy and brutal, but in the water they're fast and powerful. And their furious roars will make your blood run cold when you hear them echo over the waters in the middle of the night.”

Silver laughed. “I'm going to have nightmares.”

Flint chuckled, chest vibrating against Silver's back, a rare and delightful sensation. “I was terrified the first time I saw one up close. He emerged from the waters just where we were casting our nets, all teeth and bristly whiskers covering his mouth. I felt sure that we'd somehow trespassed into his kingdom and it was letting us know that we were there by his grace alone.”

“Kings of the sea? I suppose I understand why you'd name your ship after them.”

Flint nodded. “I was thinking along those lines. That, and the fact that the ship was impractically huge, but unstoppable once she got going.”

“Hm, wait a moment.” Silver slid around in the hammock, not caring that it was awkward, that their knees knocked together, that his stump jabbed Flint in the thigh or that the hammock swung perilously between his movement and the roll of the waves. Silver faced Flint, and reached up to stroke his shaved head.

“A slick head,” he said, fingers running over the bristly stubble trying to reclaim Flint's scalp. His hand moved lower, carding through Flint's flame-coloured beard. “And thick whiskers. We won't even mention the angry roars, the crew is all too familiar with them.”

“And the sea must be my kingdom, if I can call up storms as you once believed,” Flint added with a smirk.

“So you mean to say that you are this ship, and this ship is you,” Silver said, pressing closer to Flint, finding a more comfortable way to tangle their legs. Their stomachs rubbed together pleasantly; Silver enjoyed feeling Flint's belly fill up and recede in time with his breath, like waves lapping at the shore.

“It seems that you know all of my secrets now,” Flint murmured, pressing a kiss to Silver's lips, wrapping his arms around him.

Silver let Flint kiss him, draw him closer, absorb him into his embrace. The storm could rage outside and the seas could shake the ship, but there was safety here in the belly of this beast, and safety in Flint's arms. Perhaps, Silver thought, as their mouths grew hotter and hungrier with each kiss, letting himself be consumed by Flint wasn't as dangerous as he believed it to be. Not everyone could boast being under the protection of a king of the sea, after all.


End file.
